No. 7 UVA Returns to ACC Play on Saturday at No. 4 Notre Dame

March 15, 2018

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.– The Virginia men’s lacrosse team returns to ACC play on Saturday as the Cavaliers (6-1) travel to Indiana to face the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (3-1). Faceoff is set for 6 p.m. at Arlotta Stadium. UVA is ranked No. 7 in this week’s USILA coaches poll and No. 9 in the Inside Lacrosse/Maverick media poll. The Fighting Irish are No. 4 in both the coaches and media polls.

Live stats will be available at VirginiaSports.com. The game will be televised live on ESPNU. Anish Shroff will call the play-by-play and Paul Carcaterra will provide analysis.

Saturday marks the 12th all-time meeting between the Cavaliers and Fighting Irish, and the fifth in ACC play after Notre Dame officially joined the conference July 1, 2013. Notre Dame leads the all-time series narrowly, 6-5, but the Cavaliers have dropped the last five meetings. The first six games in the series were played in Charlottesville before the 2012 meeting in Chester, Pa., followed by UVA’s first-ever trip to Notre Dame in 2014. Four of the meetings, including the 2012 contest in Chester, Pa., have been in the NCAA Tournament.

Michael Kraus leads UVA with 16 assists and 34 points. His 18 goals are one off the team lead, which is 19 from Ian Laviano. The 19 goals by Laviano are in a three-way tie for the most in the nation among freshmen. Dox Aitken has 15 goals and six assists, while Mike D’Amario rounds out the top scorers with 12 goals and 14 assists. Justin Schwenk is No. 1 in the ACC and No. 7 in the NCAA with a 65.2 faceoff winning percentage. In the cage, UVA has split time between Griffin Thompson and Alex Rode. Thompson has started five games and is saving 52.6 percent of shots against him, while posting a 9.53 goals against average. Rode is saving 52.8 percent of shots with a 12.76 goals against average.

Notre Dame head coach Kevin Corrigan, a UVA alum, is in his 30th season with the Fighting Irish after spending two seasons as an assistant coach for the Cavaliers under former head coaching legend Jim Adams. Corrigan has led Notre Dame to 22 NCAA Tournaments while in South Bend and four Championship Weekends. Bryan Costabile leads Notre Dame with 10 goals and shares the team lead for points with Brendan Gleason. The duo each has 12 points. Gleason has a team-lead four assists. Mikey Wynne and Ryder Garnsey round out the top scorers with six goals and three assists each. Matt Schmidt is saving 47.6 percent of shots he is seeing in the goal, while posting an 8.75 goals against average.

Virginia returns to action on Tues., March 20 when Dartmouth comes to Klöckner Stadium. Faceoff is set for 7 p.m. and the game will be broadcast live on ACC Network Extra.